Arguments 2 and 3 mostly seem like arguments against having a life outside of work—am I reading that right?
Yes, if you want to maintain flexibility to jump on new projects if exciting opportunities arise, you probably shouldn’t have much of a life outside of work.
(Note: I personally do have a fairly involved life outside of work, and am fine with that trade-off. I’m just pushing back against the claim that no trade-off exists.)
[Disagreeing with my boss on the internet, but after chatting over lunch]
Inflexible life outside of work seems to be the problem. There are monetary and non-monetary examples of ways to become inflexible:
1. I spent $500 on my weekend plans. I can only that infrequently, so I really don’t want to miss it.
2. I’m leading a group on a road trip this weekend. If I bail they’ll be disappointed.
This echoes Gordon elsewhere in the comments, but I claim that non-frugality can be quite slack-constraining. This post has updated me towards keeping more slack in my budget. I’d like to not spend a significant portion of my spending money on any single adventure.
Follow-up thought 2: An expensive life outside of work would be worse than a frugal one if the increase of the temptation of one’s time off outpaced the increase in relaxation.
income effects in preferences, in which leisure becomes more valuable when income rises, … income effects are the main driving force behind the decline of average hours worked with GDP per capita.
Follow-up thought 1: This model implies that frugality is budget-dependent. A trader at a hedge fund is much less constrained by $500 weekend plans. In fact, thinking about this model might make the trader seem less frugal, as she wantonly cancels expensive trips. I’m tempted to say this means I should be paid more (Hi, boss! 😛) but I actually think it’s income-neutral, and mostly about my budgeting.
Point 2 confuses me on an empirical level. I don’t know many people whose social/leisure life largely consists of locked-in regular weekend/evening plans that they can’t change if a work opportunity (or anything else) comes up. More importantly, whether the fun activities are flexible seems to be unrelated to their cost. In fact, the commitment/cost relationship is usually negative—it’s often cheaper to pay for, say, sport and exercise classes if you lock in a series of lessons rather than paying casual entry. Likewise, casual commitment-free leisure like drinking alcohol or going to a restaurant can be much more expensive per hour than a regular commitment like playing on a friendly soccer team.
I’m not disagreeing with the post’s final paragraph—I recently decided against picking up a particular sport largely because it seemed self-indulgently expensive. But I don’t think that point 2, in particular, is factually true, even if you agree that you should reduce your leisure time to work more.
Also, there are many ways that frugality can boost productivity that aren’t mentioned in this post. A major one would be that living in an apartment, rather than a large(r) house with a garden, substantially reduces the time spent on home cleaning and maintenance.
Argument 1 makes sense. Arguments 2 and 3 mostly seem like arguments against having a life outside of work—am I reading that right?
Yes, if you want to maintain flexibility to jump on new projects if exciting opportunities arise, you probably shouldn’t have much of a life outside of work.
(Note: I personally do have a fairly involved life outside of work, and am fine with that trade-off. I’m just pushing back against the claim that no trade-off exists.)
[Disagreeing with my boss on the internet, but after chatting over lunch]
Inflexible life outside of work seems to be the problem. There are monetary and non-monetary examples of ways to become inflexible:
1. I spent $500 on my weekend plans. I can only that infrequently, so I really don’t want to miss it.
2. I’m leading a group on a road trip this weekend. If I bail they’ll be disappointed.
This echoes Gordon elsewhere in the comments, but I claim that non-frugality can be quite slack-constraining. This post has updated me towards keeping more slack in my budget. I’d like to not spend a significant portion of my spending money on any single adventure.
Follow-up thought 2: An expensive life outside of work would be worse than a frugal one if the increase of the temptation of one’s time off outpaced the increase in relaxation.
For supporting evidence, see this study:
https://www.nber.org/papers/w26554
Which I’ll quote Robin Hanson’s quote of
That sounds right to me
Follow-up thought 1: This model implies that frugality is budget-dependent. A trader at a hedge fund is much less constrained by $500 weekend plans. In fact, thinking about this model might make the trader seem less frugal, as she wantonly cancels expensive trips. I’m tempted to say this means I should be paid more (Hi, boss! 😛) but I actually think it’s income-neutral, and mostly about my budgeting.
Point 2 confuses me on an empirical level. I don’t know many people whose social/leisure life largely consists of locked-in regular weekend/evening plans that they can’t change if a work opportunity (or anything else) comes up. More importantly, whether the fun activities are flexible seems to be unrelated to their cost. In fact, the commitment/cost relationship is usually negative—it’s often cheaper to pay for, say, sport and exercise classes if you lock in a series of lessons rather than paying casual entry. Likewise, casual commitment-free leisure like drinking alcohol or going to a restaurant can be much more expensive per hour than a regular commitment like playing on a friendly soccer team.
I’m not disagreeing with the post’s final paragraph—I recently decided against picking up a particular sport largely because it seemed self-indulgently expensive. But I don’t think that point 2, in particular, is factually true, even if you agree that you should reduce your leisure time to work more.
Also, there are many ways that frugality can boost productivity that aren’t mentioned in this post. A major one would be that living in an apartment, rather than a large(r) house with a garden, substantially reduces the time spent on home cleaning and maintenance.